


Resignation

by mtjester



Series: Insurrectionbent [6]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Sgrub Session, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-08
Updated: 2013-04-08
Packaged: 2017-12-07 22:09:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/753638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mtjester/pseuds/mtjester
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Karkat finally musters the courage to leave Nepeta's cave, but the constant threat of the culling drones keeps him on edge.  Nepeta tries to convince him to relax, but, like usual, his mind wanders beyond Alternia to the intergalactic community of trolls that would never accept him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Resignation

**Author's Note:**

> Set before the events of [Insurrection for Desperate Dreamers](http://archiveofourown.org/works/629667/chapters/1138507)
> 
> Recommended listening: [Woman I Never Met by Clark Powell](http://clarkpowell.bandcamp.com/track/woman-i-never-met) (or any other derivation of [Serenade](http://homestuck.bandcamp.com/track/iii-serenade) or [Requited](http://homestuck.bandcamp.com/track/requited))

“Nepeta sees potential prey in the darkness ahead, and she crouches down.  She wriggles her rear and prepares to pounce!” Nepeta whispered, smiling as she crawled over twisted roots in the sparse forest that sprawled across the valley outside her cave.  Night had fallen, but the bright pink moon provided enough light to illuminate the landscape.  The cliffs and mountains rising from the valley loomed against the starry sky.  Nepeta scaled one of the many boulders peppering the forest, and, after a brief pause, she leaped, shouting a battle cry.  Karkat jumped and turned, whipping his sickle out of his strife specibus, but Nepeta was already bounding away, laughing.

“Is it too much to fucking ask that you respect my anxiety right now?” he snapped, gripping his sickle tightly.  Nepeta moved over to him and sat down on a squat rock, grinning.

“Nepeta would like to apologize for scaring Karcat.  She nuzzles against his legs and drops a peace offuring at his feet,” she said, extending a handful of nuts she had gathered for him.

Karkat glared at her hand before reaching over and taking a couple.  “Karkat can’t believe he’s risking his neck to go on a moonlit stroll with a spastic kitten,” he said, popping them into his mouth.  “Karkat would feel a lot better if he weren’t standing out in the open like a target at a shooting range.”

“Purrhaps a moonlit stroll is exactly what you need!” Nepeta said, taking his hand and dumping the rest of the nuts into his palm.  “You’ve been sitting inside for too long.  Doesn’t it feel good to be outside?  It’s a purrfect night!”

He grimaced and sat down next to her, looking up at the sky.  “I almost forgot what the moon looked like,” he finally said.

Nepeta smiled.  “See?  It’s nice, isn’t it?”

“How is this nice?  There could be a hundred culling drones hiding in these pathetic excuses for trees, waiting to ambush us, and we’re just sitting here looking at the sky like it’s something new.  I don’t like it out here.  Let’s go back inside.”

“But you just said you furgot what the moon looked like, so it’s almost like it’s new, right?”

“I said I _almost_ forgot, and since I don’t really care what the fuck the moon looks like anyway, it’s not like I’m having an emotional moment right now.”

Nepeta sighed and sprawled on her back across the flat rock, and, despite his discomfort, Karkat made no move to leave.  He had lied a little about not having an emotional moment, but it was true that it wasn’t the sort of moment Nepeta probably hoped he was having.  He looked up at the sky.  Everyone he knew was up there orbiting those stars, and so were all his failed dreams.  But the regret was duller now than it had been just after Conscription Day, and his disappointment throbbed more like an old scar than a cut.  He found it almost comforting to look up at the stars now, even though it rubbed against sore spots.  It was like a rough message against tired and torn muscles.  He hadn't been outside in so long, and the air felt clean and crisp, and if he cared to think about it, perhaps the Alternia sky really was beautiful.

“Do you know any constellations?” Nepeta asked, and he glanced at her.  She was watching him think.

“Fuck yeah I do,” he said.  “I know all of them.”

“Will you teach me?” she asked, turning towards him and curling up, catlike in her movements.

“No.”

“Why?” she asked, pouting.

“Because I don’t want to.”

She sighed.  “You probably don’t actually know them at all.”

“If I say I know them, I know them.  I just don’t want to sit out here pointing at constellations with you like we’re budding matesprits in some cliché romance movie.”

“Oh,” she said, and she turned over to lie on her back. 

He tried to ignore the guilt he felt for it, but it bore down on him until, after a few quiet seconds, he burst out, “I’m having a fucking moment, okay?  So stop.”

“Stop what?” she asked, bewildered by his outburst.

“Stop...I don’t fucking know, being like that."

“Being like what?”

He grit his teeth.  He knew what he was talking about, but only in the vague, shadowy sense of emotion and perception that is impossible to explain to other people.  It was her facial expressions and body language, her small, harmless comments and her refusal to partake in his pity parties that Karkat wanted her to stop.  He wanted her to stop making him uncomfortable by trying to make him comfortable.  He wanted her to stop enjoying his presence so damn much when he was constantly pissing on her unconditional kindness and honest enthusiasm.  Why couldn’t he have gotten stuck with someone like Sollux, who could respect his self-depreciating needs and sometimes give him an opportunity to justify his verbal abuse?

In short, he wanted Nepeta to stop being Nepeta.  But Nepeta _was_ Nepeta, and she was the only troll he had.

He crossed his arms and slouched, and after a moment he mumbled, “Sorry.”

She examined him, confused and concerned.  “Is something bothering you?”

He grimaced and exhaled.  “Yeah.”

“What is it?” she asked, trying to hide her excitement as she sat up and sidled next to him.

“Basically everything."

Her face fell.  “Is it all really that bad?” she asked.  “I know you didn’t want to be here, but is it really that clawful?”

“Okay, I can handle the cat pun thing, but that one was obtuse.”

“Sorry,” Nepeta said with a sheepish smile.

He relaxed slightly.  “It’s not that it’s awful,” he explained, “it’s just that it’s not what I want.”

She looked at him with a sad expression of hopelessness.  He had said something similar many times before, and he knew it bothered her that she could do nothing to help him.  He knew she tried.  It was just another thing she did that frustrated him. She went out of her way to try to cheer him up, making her hive feel more like home for him, deferring to his personal preferences over her own, and providing him with unending emotional support whether he asked for it or not, but he just didn’t have it in him to change the way he felt about his situation.  He couldn’t just let go of his old ambitions, and he couldn’t dispel his discontent.  And then she would look at him like this, with that crestfallen, hopeless expression, and he would feel like a jerk for throwing her hospitality back into her face.  She only wanted to please him, and he stubbornly refused to be pleased. 

“And another thing,” he said, “you need to stop being so goddamn nice all the time.  It’s stressing me the fuck out.”

“It’s stressing you out?” she asked, cocking her head to the side in confusion.

“Yeah.  Fuck, how do I put this...I’m an asshole.  You shouldn’t be nice to assholes.  It makes us feel...like assholes.”

Nepeta smiled.  “I don’t think you’re an asshole!”

“How do you not think I’m an asshole?” he asked.  “See, this is the fucking problem!  I was a huge pulsing bonebulge to you literally minutes ago and you’re acting like I didn’t just take a steaming shit on your feelings for no reason but my own sick self-aggrandizement.  At least pretend like I’m out of line when I’m out of line!  Then I won’t have to feel like the world’s most shameless tool later tonight when you feed me and tuck me in to sleep.”

She laughed.  “It doesn’t bother me that you’re grumpy.  It’s kind of adorable!” she said before she could stop herself, and, blushing, she stammered, “But not like, uh...I mean, I’m purrfectly okay with who you are as a purrson, and if you’re an asshole sometimes, that’s just you!  It doesn’t hurt my feelings most of the time.”

She looked away from him, still blushing, and an awkward second passed.

“But it hurts your feelings some of the time is the point,” Karkat said, picking up the conversation as though nothing strange had been said, and she sighed with relief.

“Sometimes,” she admitted.  “But I don’t think it’s beclaws of you!  It’s always about some purrsonal issues I have that you don’t know about, so it’s not your fault that I get upset.”

“So it seriously doesn’t bother you that the whole time I’ve been here I’ve done nothing but bitch, moan, and whine, and that I meet every effort you make to cheer me up with cynical distain and occasional personal attacks?”

“Not at all!” she said.  “I guess I’ve sort of figured out when you’re being serious and when you’re just purrtending to be all tough.  And truthfurry, sometimes it makes it even more rewarding when I do manage to make you feel better.”

He sighed, bringing a hand up to rub his temple.  “Okay.  Whatever.”

“Is _that_ what was bothering you?”

“Not all of it,” he said, but he didn’t continue.  She watched him with curiosity.  Finally, he grimaced and said, “Okay, you see that group of stars?”  He pointed to the sky near the horizon, between two rocky outcrops.  Nepeta’s eyes followed his hand, and he explained which stars he was referring to.

He began to tell her the story behind the constellation, and when she realized what he was doing, her face broke into a grin.  It was absurd how easy it was to distract her, he thought, moving from one constellation to the next.  He wasn’t planning to talk about more than two or three, but she greeted his descriptions with such enthusiasm that he found himself explaining the entire southern sky, relating the stories of each constellation to the others to form for her a more complete picture of the mythology behind the stars.  Here was something he liked about Nepeta. She treated every scrap of knowledge and every skill set he had as somehow interesting, even the things he thought were silly or inconsequential.  It made him feel important.  Not the kind of important he wished he could be, but it was still nice to have someone’s undivided attention and unrestrained respect.

  
  
_Image by the amazing[gloomy-optimist](http://gloomy-optimist.tumblr.com)_   


He didn’t know what prompted him to do it, but when he was finished with the constellation myths, he asked, “Do you think there’s an end to the universe?”

Nepeta looked at him, wearing a quizzical expression.

“Think about it,” he continued.  “We can see all these stars from Alternia, but there are way more beyond those, right?  The universe is fucking huge, bigger than our puny little think pans can imagine.  If we weren’t stuck on this dark shitpit of a planet, we could be flying through those constellations.  We could be flying through constellations we don’t even fucking know exist right now, since we’re stuck looking at the same damn sky every night.  We could conquer all those galaxies up there in the name of Alternia, on and on for fucking ever until the entire universe is ours.  Until we reached the end of the universe.  How fucking awesome would it be to be the first troll to see the end of the universe?”

Nepeta guessed that this philosophical outburst was somehow related to their previous conversation, which she had nearly forgotten while Karkat indulged her request to learn about the constellations.  Unsure of his point, she replied, “I think it would be cool.”

“It would be so fucking cool.  And now’s the best time for it, you know that?  No one has gone as far into space as the Condesce.  She’s taken over the whole damn galaxy.  How badass is that?”

“Pretty badass!”

“Right?  If I had become a Threshecutioner, I could be out there, conquering the known universe.  Maybe even some of the unknown universe.  Hell, maybe I could have been the first one to see the end of it all.”

Nepeta, now understanding what this conversation was about, said with sympathy, “And you think you can’t now, right?”

He growled, running his hands through his hair, and then shouted, “Why?”  Nepeta jumped, startled by his sudden outburst, but he ignored her.  He balled his hands into fists, dropping them into his lap.  “Why did this have to happen to me?  I could have been the best Threshecutioner there ever was!  I have the heart for it!  I’m loyal!  Why did I have to have such shitty blood?  It’s not fucking fair!”

Nepeta hovered by his side, flustered and unsure of how to react to the situation.  Hesitantly, she scooted a little closer to him and tried to gather the courage to put her arm around him, hug him, rub his back, do _something_ to comfort him, but her nerves failed her.  She was too shy to touch him like that.  Instead, she leaned forward, resting her torso on her lap and looking up at Karkat’s face.  He glanced at her and looked away. 

“You know,” he said, beginning to calm down, “I used to hope there would be a way to make the cut for the Threshecutioners, despite my blood.  I used to think I could somehow hide my blood color or impress them into accepting me on merit alone.  I thought I could do it.  It was my dream.  But instead I ran away like a coward.  I fucked myself over, and I fucked you over, too.  Now look at us.  Here we are, two hopeless recluses, hanging out on a planet full of children and exchanging stupid stories about fake heroes that somehow ended up in the stars.”

“You didn’t screw me over,” Nepeta said, examining his face.  “I—“ and the blush crept back onto her cheeks, “I think I’m pawsibly happier here with you than I would have been anyway.”

He looked back at her, but this time she was the one who broke eye contact, looking away as soon as their eyes met.  She heard him shift, and when she glanced back he was looking at the sky again.

“It doesn’t matter.  I was fooling myself anyways.  If I hadn’t come here, they would have culled the shit out of me the second I showed up for conscription.”

“Purrhaps you could have made it,” Nepeta said.  “Think about the Summoner!  He was only a bronze blood, but he became the leader of a grrreat rebellion.  He was able to purrove his worth despite his blood color, right?”

“And just look how he ended up,” Karkat said.  “His rebellion was fucking decimated by the Subjugglators.  He _failed_.  And he was just your average, run-of-the-mill lowblood.  I’m a fucking pariah, for fuck’s sake, what sort of chance would I have stood?  Maybe there really is something in this hemospectrum bullshit.  Maybe shitbloods like us literally _can’t_ succeed.” 

Nepeta made a noise of protest.  “Don’t say that!” she said, sitting up straight.

“Why the fuck not?  It sure does look that way, doesn’t it?”

“Because you’re better than that!  I’m pawsitive that you’re better than that!” she said, growing agitated.  “I don’t know anything about blood color or stuff like that, but I know you, and you would defurnitely succeed if you were a Threshecutioner!  You would succeed at anything, no matter what color your blood is, and it’s not fair for them to say you can’t!”

“It’s fucking swell of you think so,” he said, but he felt a little touched despite himself.

“It’s not fair!” she repeated.  “Highbloods don’t have to do anything to purrove themselves.  Equius wasn’t even worried about his conscription!  Well, except that he wanted to be Archeradicator, but he sucked at archery too much.  But that’s not the point!  You’re purrobably braver and more loyal than all those stupid highbloods!  You’d purrobably be a better leader too!  You could be better than all the Subjugglators and blueblooded aristocats combined!”

“It doesn’t fucking matter.  Until the Condesce has a reason to believe we’re more than handy tools for her armies, lowbloods and genetic freaks like me are going to keep getting thrown into the garbage heap for the benefit of those lazy highblooded shitstains."   

“Isn’t there something you can do?”

“Haven’t you been paying attention?  I’ve been asking that question this whole damn time!” he said.  Nepeta looked dejected, and Karkat huffed, slumping over and crossing his arms.  Several minutes passed.

“What if,” Nepeta said, “you led a rebellion?”

“...That’s a shitty idea.”

“No, listen!” Nepeta insisted, turning towards him.  “You want to purrove your worth to the Condesce, right?  So pawsibly, if you get a big following and conquer some planets yourself, and then challenge the highbloods and purrove that you can do better than they do, purrhaps you can show the Condesce what you’re really worth!”

“There are so many glaringly obvious problems with that plan I don’t even know where to start,” Karkat said.  “For starters, how the hell is leading a rebellion _against_ the highbloods supposed to prove _to_ the highbloods that we’re anything more than rabble rousers and mutinous scum?”

Nepeta looked crestfallen.  “Purrhaps...since the Subjugglators are so capricious all the time, it would be a good change for the Condesce to have someone more reliable doing their job,” she said.

“Yeah, sure, and how the hell would we be able to convince anybody about the rationality behind that suicide mission well enough to put together a real army?”

“I think there would people who would follow you,” she said.  “I would follow you.”

“Until your hulking control-freak of a moirail tells you not to, and then I’d be shit out of luck."

“That’s not true!”

“It is true and you know it.  He would just have to say the word and you’d drop right the fuck out.  If I can’t even trust you, how the hell am I supposed to expect anyone else to jump on the bandwagon?  It’s not like anyone has any reason to believe in a mutant blooded nobody who crawled out of a cave on Alternia several sweeps too late.”

“I would defurnitely stay with you!” Nepeta said.  “I do what Equius says a lot beclaws he’s mostly just looking out for me, but in this case it would be diffurent.  A rebellion like this would be so much more important than our meowrallegience!  It’s more important than anything else I could be doing!  Even if Equius tried to stop me, I would still do it, beclaws I believe in the things it stands for.  He would just have to understand what it means to me!  But...I know he wouldn’t.”  She finished with a note of sadness that was not lost on Karkat.

“Why do you let that scumbag push you around so much?” he asked.  “You’re on totally different wavelengths, I don’t get it.”

“No, we’re not,” she said.  “We really do get along famousely.  But he’s got a weird thing about class...”

“Yeah, no fucking kidding.”

“He would purrobably be mad if he knew you were the reason I stayed on Alternia,” she admitted.  “He would be _really_ mad if I joined a rebellion against the highbloods with you.”

“Tough shit, you’re a grown woman who can make decisions for herself." 

Nepeta didn’t respond immediately. “I miss him a lot," she finally said.

Karkat glanced over at her, and he was alarmed to see her looking genuinely depressed.  He sighed, feeling like an asshole again, and, after a brief internal struggle, he reached over and patted her on the back.  When she looked at him in surprise, he said, “I miss my moirail, too.  He was living, breathing proof that if there is a god it’s a complete moron, but I still miss him.  A whole fucking lot sometimes.”

Nepeta smiled at his attempt to comfort her, and for a moment they settled into a mutual understanding of each other’s melancholy.  Since she was usually so enthusiastic about taking care of him and cheering him up, Karkat rarely saw Nepeta show any sign that she regretted the fate that bound her to Alternia, and somehow it made her seem more real and approachable to know that she had given something up, too.  And she had done it for him, he reminded himself.

“What would you have done if you had gone for conscription like you were supposed to?” he asked.

The question took her off-guard, but she thought about it.  “I think I would have tried to make troll cartoons.  I like drawing, and there aren’t so many stupid rules about blood color and stuff like that in troll entertainment.  It would have been purrfect for me.  But,” she said, and she hesitated.  She fidgeted before continuing, “I’m glad I didn’t do that.  I’m glad I stayed here.  I would purrfer to stay and help you than go make silly cartoons any day.  And if you ever do get off Alternia to do something amazing, I want to help you do that, too.  I want to be a part of that.”

He glanced at her, and she held eye contact for a second this time before finally losing her nerve and looking away.  A strange mass of emotion throbbed through his chest.  It was an uncomfortable feeling but not entirely unpleasant, warm but also rather melancholy.  He knew it was hopeless to think about leaving Alternia.  He knew he would never be satisfied with his life.  But for once, something in him felt that maybe it didn’t have to be so bad.  If this was the way it had to happen, maybe he could live with it.  And for the first time, he allowed himself to recognize something similar to affection for Nepeta tucked into the sensation.  She wasn’t his first pick, but she was honest and thoughtful, and he felt gratitude swell in the center of the dense mix of emotions.

He looked at the sky, sighing and making little effort to understand what it was he was feeling.  The way things were looking, he would have plenty of time to work out his internal issues.  It was just him, Nepeta, and this valley for the rest of their lives, nights and perigees and sweeps to work it all out with nothing at all to worry about.  No drama, no intrigue, no excitement, and no glory.  Just monotony and peace.

Even as the thought passed, he saw moonlight glint off something as it flew over the cliff in front of them.  He started and squinted.  Whatever it was, it was moving fast, and it was clearly not organic.  He gasped.

“Get down!” he hissed, grabbing Nepeta and pulling her down against the rock.  She made a startled noise as he hugged her to him and rolled them both off the rock’s surface, huddling with her against the foot of the rock.

“What is it?” she asked, glancing around.

“Shh!” he silenced her, pointing as the robot landed at the door of her cave.  She let out a strangled cry.

“Pounce de Leon!” she said, moving to stand.  Karkat grabbed her and held her down.

“Be quiet!” he hissed, covering her mouth with his hand.  “Do you want to get your ass culled?”  She shook her head, but he could see the distress in her eyes.  He growled and looked back at the cave, into which the figure had disappeared.  Feeling his stomach sink, he squeezed her gently, trying to comfort her.

They lay perfectly still for the next couple minutes until the figure reappeared, glinting in the light of the pink moon.  It was too far for them to see it well, but there was something strange about its form.  It didn’t look like any culling drone Karkat had seen.  Still, they hardly dared to breathe while it looked across the valley, searching for something between the scrubby trees and scattered rocks.  Finally, it seemed satisfied, and it slowly rose into the night.  They watched it fly over the valley and disappear behind one of the cliffs. 

Nepeta immediately made to rush to the cave, but Karkat held onto her, whispering, “Wait to see if it comes back, dumbass.”  She whimpered but followed his advice.  He could feel his heart hammering in his chest.  If they hadn’t been outside, they would have been found.  They would have been killed.  They were _that close_ to getting culled.  He hugged Nepeta a little tighter, waves of anxiety and adrenaline filling him with nausea.

“Karkat,” she whined, her concern for her lusus driving her to near-hysteria.  Snapping back to attention, he let her go, and she was gone.  He rolled over onto his back and closed his eyes, allowing himself to breathe.  They were _that close_ to getting culled.  But they had survived.  They were alive.  He opened his eyes and looked up at the stars, and he felt pure gratitude burst through him.  It suddenly felt so nice to not be dead.

But would it be coming back?  Were they still in danger?  Should they move to a new location, or would the culling drones mark Nepeta’s hive off the list as abandoned?

One thing was for sure, he thought. He would be coming outside with Nepeta a lot more frequently from now on.

**Author's Note:**

> [If you followed the link from IDD chapter 29, click here to proceed to chapter 30.](http://archiveofourown.org/works/629667/chapters/1737004)


End file.
